22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

When painting doors, slowly is good. There is nothing worse than finding a drip blob when it has dried. You will see it every time you go through the door.

DS3 has asked for his bedroom to be painted duck egg blue, he believes (at the grand old age of 11) that he is too old for Star Wars wallpaper. So it seems like I will be getting my ladders out again soon.

DS4 is trashing everything - his pinboard, his chalkboard, just everything that goes into his bedroom he kills. Does not bode well for that beanbag.

Right, have to ring Step-gran to find out what has happened to her since Monday.

Eager_Elephant

f0xh0les wrote: »

Then Child Tax muppets are now chasing me for annual declaration, I wonder if I ring them now to tell them DS1 is continuing in education, they will tell me to contact them after his GCSE results? I notice they are only guaranteeing the payment until 30th August - so they are not counting on him continuing in education. It will be one of those, 'you can't tell us in advance, you can only tell us when he has confirmed his offer' things. Like you can't tell them if you are moving until after you have moved, or that you are leaving a job on xx August, but they stick their fingers in their ears and say 'lalalalalalalalalala', until you have actually left, and then they will update your details.

Its actually even worse, you arent allowed to ring them up until 1st September so by the time they have input the change you have 1 or 2 weeks with no money for that child (it is then spread throughout the rest of the year so the weekly payment goes up very slightly) but for families who are struggling they are down about £58 per week.

f0xh0les

Thanks EE I thought it would! They are rotten swines aren't they?
DH announced grandly at 10.15 he was going to work, I was very surprised, because, as you will know, his weekend camping trips begin before 12 on a Thursday. He got very offended and told me he always leaves on a Friday. I am still expecting him to leave tonight. Must be the rain that is putting him off.

He is complaining of a very low mood. It is a regular thing, nothing new, but I do worry about him. The kids are not helping, eldest 2 are bickering and fighting as they know they only have a short while left at school, and they are looking forward to not having to get up in the morning, so what is better to do than start a pointless arguement at every mealtime? They are so annoying, but I still love them. I think DH would like to push them off a cliff. Maybe that is why somebody invented university. It makes them leave home..... we still have 2 years to go though. Poor man. At least we have NCS for 4 weeks over summer.

Nothing new to report on the step-gran front, except she has decided she does not need her stick, or her zimmer. The woman is a bl00dy menace, but I don't know if she is just saying it, or if she is actually doing it. Manipulative old bat. Time will tell.

It is still raining... and DS4 felt the need to leave the rear window of my car open all night. I have about 1 cm of water in the footwell, and a totally soaked back seat. It is now covered in towels, hoping the wicking effect will help, and will be heading to the £ shop for those little sachets of moisture absorbing balls. The heating is on full blast until further notice. grrrr.

greenbee

Could you possibly divert your DIY skills into building an ark? I'll give you directions when you're ready. You'll be able to sail straight up to my door if this carries on much longer.

bizzie

I completed our Tax Credits renewal online and one of the menu options allowed me to update Child Benefit for "child staying in education after 16".
I believe that information has been acted upon by the payments we've recently received and are listed on our account.
Obviously received no paperwork to back up that statement but that's part and parcel of the system - they change the payment amount then inform us.

f0xh0les

I did the Tax Credits online too today, and I managed to find the - staying in education bit, but you have to hit the 'edit child' name, address et al details button first. Anyway, all done. We shall see.

DH left this morning, I am so relaxed. I know I can do nothing if he is feeling down, as he says, it is not because of anything, he is just feeling low. It is not anything we have done. But I don't have to worry until Sunday night now.

So I have just spent an hour on wasteb00k mAssager helping an old friend who is planning a trip to Germany and needs to get around by train. Considering I have not lived there for 21 years, I am no longer an expert, but we were there together once, and had managed to get us back to the closest train station to our little village hotel where we were staying (we were on a coach tour and had gone rogue), and there were no taxis, or buses at that time of night, so we all headed into a bar, and I asked the bar owner if he had the number of a taxi driver who might take us home, and one of the locals (there were only 2 in the bar at this time - about midnight) said he would take us, as it was only a few miles and on his way home, he then proceeded to drink for the best part of an hour and a half, and then he took us all back to the hotel, refused any payment at all, and it started snowing as we walked up the hill to the hotel. It was a nice memory I had nearly forgotten. Anyway, I hope she gets where she needs to be, considering I lived on t'other side of the country, I reckon she'll do fine. So that was my good deed for the evening, but now it is getting dark and I was nearly 2 hours late in sending the kids to bed, and they have goine up with their tablets which means they will probably still be awake. And I do not really care! It is Friday night, and for once I don't want any arguing at bedtime. I will go up to bed soon and unplug the wifi at the telephone socket. That way the router does not need resetting. ha ha ha!

After being told off on Wednesday for ringing step-gran when I had rung her on Monday, she rings at 6 tonight to ask why I have not rung her today. I cannot win, but I think I may have devised a plan.
Now considering she is 80 this year, and the next illness may well carry her off, and as f-i-l is having his nethers biopsied next week, you know what? I am just going to take the kids over there when school ends. I accept this. DH does not want to go, fine, he does not have to. I cannot make him. I am not organizing him. Step-Gran needs to realise I cannot care for her and my kids at the same time, something has to give. So she can have the opportunity to realize she cant do this anymore. DS1 will be away at camp, so that is one less person to have to bother with, and gives DH a reason to stay home as he will be back at weekends and need picking up. I am just going to treat this as (hopefully) the last year I have to do it. The more infirm step-gran gets, the more likelihood she will either be in a home or on a cloud by this time next year. She can have one more summer on me. She also informed me about all the jobs she needs me to do for her and the places she wants me to take her and the food shops she wants to go to.

I can do this one more time. I can be brave. But she is not to cancel her calls, and I am not going to make the kids hide in the bedroom to keep out of her way.

So there. calm, organised,serene, what could possibly go wrong? :rotfl:

kerri_gt

Oh f0xh0les you have the patience of a saint, for some reason step-gran reminds me a bit of the film 'The Lady in the Van'...except she doesn't live in a van obv, but sounds entirely as stubborn and beligerant.
Saying that, I remember my grandma being 83 and bed bound when she passed...and visits to se her would still start with who she'd 'wiped the floor with' since our last visit :eek:

f0xh0les

I have been so amazing today!

Got up, stripped the beds, stuck the laundry on (the dryer is going, sorry! but it keeps spitting and going horribly dark like it is about to bucket down, then brightens up a bit again).

Got a message from a man down the road who is moving and wastebooked a tv and a dvd player and one of those glass tv stands for £20, so went to pick it up at 10. It is the biggest tv I have ever owned. Works perfectly, ok it is an older style, but still flatscreen and large with inbuilt freeview! Came home, showed the kids, and I now have a tv in the kitchen! yay me! It also means I can move stuff around in the back room a bit more....

Then I grabbed DS3 & 4 and dragged them down to the hipster barbers, and after nearly an hour's wait, they did both boys heads, really well, and they look great, so I took them home, dropped DS4, and took DS3 off to the chemists for some medication and passport photos (DH said he would do it on his phone, but we are still waiting on him doing it, so I have taken it out of his hands) £5 for 6 photos with his new hair. Job done.

Came home (again) made lunch, ate lunch, made scones, ate scones, nice cuppa on the sofa with the ladies football (Netherlands vs Cameroon - calm down Cameroon!)
Going to make potato and corn chowder for supper for DS3 & 4 tonight, the rest of us are finishing a very spicy aubergine and beansprout dish I made yesterday with a ys sachet I found in the back of the pantry. All good cheap fun. We did not make it to the festival down the canal today, but it is on tomorrow as well, and there is a free street festival summer fair local event on tomorrow as well, so will try to get to both.

Tomorrow I am making a roast(less) lunch with many vegetables and yorkies .

Tonight I will clean and tidy the kitchen, finish the laundry, fold and return, and start on a new book. I am averaging one book a day. They can all go off to the c/s this coming week too.

Still had to go outside this morning and tip all the rain water out of the pots outside. They are absolutely waterlogged, a couple of dry days will do wonders for the poor things. But the sky is again blackening, and I don't hold out much hope.
Did have to laugh about all the people who have bailed on Download because they are wet and there is mud. Also there is a ban on umbrellas in the main arena, and people are not happy. What on earth is the world coming to when you demand to take an umbrella to a rock festival? I know we are British dammit, but surely the bowler hat should suffice! or is this another side effect of Brexit? I demand the right to bear an umbrella, or I am going home. It is not like we didn't have a full fortnight of rain to let people know it might be a tad wet and muddy. Ahh yes, the rain is back on.

Right, stuff to do.

See you later.

Oh yes, my car is now full of those balls that absorb moisture, and the seats appear to be dry on top, although there is still dampness under the knees part of the seats, and the footwell is still wet. So the balls have been deployed.

kerri_gt

I was recalling with a friend yesterday how we spent pretty much the entire weekend at a very wet Glastonbury wearing bin liners (in the days before people had cottoned on to flogging those plastic poncho things) to keep dry(ish) ...we put ears in them and pretended we were Ewoks. Umbrellas indeed...pah!

f0xh0les

Happy Sunday all!
Listened to the radio all night, went to sleep at 2am, awake again at 7.

Folded and returned more laundry
Got another 2 loads line dried!

Took DS3 and 4 out to Mr M's, after vouchers I paid £1.75.

Came home and made lunch and blueberry scones, I have spent most of the day stood up in the kitchen. Lunch turned into toad in't 'ole and roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, corn, peas, and gravy. Nobody complained.
Went to the summer fair, got hit with sciatica, so came home and lay in a hot bath, it is a bit better.

Pizza for supper, DS1 had soup, then more scones.
All the laundry is done.

Back to school tomorrow, four weeks to go. Last GCSE for DS1, further/higher/longer/wider Maths paper 2. He has no plans for the next 5 weeks.

So now I am sat on the sofa for the first time today, nursing my sciatica, with a cup of tea and socceraid. I got tickets for DS3 when we lived in Manchester and it was at Old Trafford. He loved it, hopefully it will head over this way while we are here. King Power is not a small stadium, after all.